Bulletproof
by Echoing Fantasy
Summary: She doesn't like thinking about his work, but sometimes it just hits her. In those moments, she remembers just how fragile she is.


Nana Sawada is a caretaker. She watches over the kids in her house, cooks and cleans, washes clothes and mops the floors. She is a good woman, cheerful and almost always smiling. When her loved ones and their strange guests come in, she greets them enthusiastically, and then invites the strange guests to dinner.

Nana Sawada is a coward. She clings to the kids to hide her instinct to cower under the largest piece of furniture she has with a cleaver knife and stab anything that comes near her. She forces herself to do the chores out in the open day in and day out to avoid thinking about the fact that she's in a house with so many openings, it would be easy for a sniper to come and take her out. She smiles to hide her fear, and when the guests come over, she buries her hands behind her back or in her apron to hide the shaking of her limbs. The enthusiasm is to cover the quaver in her voice, and the dinner is a peace offering – _if I feed you, will you still kill me?_

Nana Sawada is a lover. She misses her husband almost all the time, and cries herself to sleep when he's gone. She needs him; he is her soul mate and the father of her children who is almost always gone because his work is so very demanding. She wishes he could have his profession here in the city, instead of thousands of miles away, or millions, or however far away he is. She misses him, and wishes he could come back more often.

Nana Sawada is the enemy of her husband. She cries herself to sleep, she is so relieved by his leaving the house where he visits every now and again, as if to remind her that he is still alive, still fighting that bloody mafia war. She doesn't want him around, although he is the father of her children. He is a creature, wild and exotic, that bears fangs and claws that can rip her to shreds at any time. She is glad he is so far away for so many months; it gives her plenty of time to compose herself for his next visit, when he drinks and eats and ruts eagerly with her, as if to rekindle the spark that was there before she realized what he was. She hates him, and yet she craves him at times, like a bad drug fixation.

Nana Sawada is all these things, but more than anything she is not blind. She knows what her husband is – knows what he's done, and who he's killed. Her husband is the CEDEF's leader, a powerful man in his own right, with too many enemies to count. And at times when his absence has turned her hatred into longing, she recalls that he has too many enemies to count, and will shiver, and wonder _when will my turn to become the target come? _Because there will be a time she knows, when he is gone and someone comes inside the house that won't want her cooking or her cheerful attitude. They won't see a good wife, or a caretaker or a coward or an enemy. They will only see a _target. _

It is her reason she has stayed with him so long. She fears her husband, hates him more than she can say, and yet she can't leave, because the beast she sleeps with is the only thing keeping the other beasts from killing and eating her. The mafia speaks of respect towards women, but Nana knows that behind closed doors, most of those men would not hesitate to force her down on her hands and knees and have their way with her before they make her beg for her life just before killing her.

But this is not the worst of it. Because she knows, has seen the signs that Tsuna – her Tsuna, her little boy – has begun to take on the characteristics of his father. He is gone almost all the time, and when he finally does come back, it's with a certain look in his eyes, and his clothes scuffed and worn. His face is aging, and his hands are so callused now that Nana won't touch them – they are just like _his _hands, the ones that caress her body and bring her pleasure even when she wishes they wouldn't. That day the mafia man Reborn showed up at her door, she had thought that finally, _finally _Iemitsu was dead, she could escape with her son and flee back to her old home and stay there with her parents, who have not heard from her in nearly ten years.

But no. Reborn was not there for her, but for Tsuna – her little boy, who had her instincts when it came to danger. He mocked Reborn, but she could see the fear behind his eyes, could see the growing realization. At that moment, he looked so much her when she saw Iemitsu kill his enemy that night in the alley so many years ago, she wanted to weep. Instead, she smiled, and said, "This is your home-tutor Reborn, Tsuna-kun. I saw how low your last test score was, so I called him!"

The look of dawning horror on Tsuna's face then was something that broke her heart. She wished she wasn't nearly so weak, that she could get down on her knees and beg his forgiveness, that she was subjecting him to this. She could already see where his thoughts were headed – _you're my mother, you're supposed to protect me, and yet you're shoving me towards the danger, instead of away from it!_

In her head, she apologized countless times to him, told him she was sorry and that she loved him more than he would ever know, but his father held both of their leashes, and what Iemitsu wanted, Iemitsu got. Even if the decision had not strictly been his. It had been the Ninth's – but Iemitsu was his advisor, and so had probably played quite a role in the decision.

After that, she regularly heard Tsuna's shrieks and screams, heard explosions and thumps and all manner of things. And each time she heard Tsuna scream or cry out or beg Reborn to put the gun away, her hand would tighten, and she would be subjected to memories of the night she first met Iemitsu. He had been so charming, so kind, she had fallen for the ruse with almost disgusting ease. And then he'd killed the man trying to kill her with that terrifying strength, and told her who he was. She had realized then, looking between him, the dead body and the wedding band on her finger, that she had married a monster of a different color.

Now she lays in bed and stares silently at the ceiling, listening to Tsuna down the hall with Reborn, and Lampo and I-pin a ways further, and her husband beside her, and prays she will become bulletproof overnight.


End file.
